We make such terrible mistakes with visual choices about beauty.
I made a tape recording of a bridge collapsing and I wanted to play it suddenly and very loudly when people were walking over a big bridge in Belgrade. The council forbid it. Their imagination is tiny; mine is big. I want always to shake everything up.
You can't choreograph death, but you can choreograph your funeral.
I had a very difficult relationship with my mother. She used to wake me up in the middle of the night if I wasn't sleeping straight and was messing up the sheets. Now when I stay in hotels I sleep so straight they don't even think I've used the bed.
I had so much fear of blood, and the first thing I did was to cut myself to see what happens. That's the only way to rebuild yourself.
I am pure performance, and Robert Wilson is pure theater.
For me, the most difficult piece is the one I'm about to make.
An artist has to look at the future, to see what we can do better.
My work is immaterial. It's not painting, it's not sculpture, it's emotions. I'm giving you something to experience yourself.
What you get is the opening of your mind. I'm not preaching any new religion; I'm ritualizing everyday activities. You drink the water. You count the rice. You sit in Crystal Cave. You lie in Levitation Chamber. You push yourself to a new level.
Woody Allen has a wonderful line: 'Today I'm a star. What will I be tomorrow? A black hole?' That's very important to know - that you have the moment, then you lose the moment. You have to see your chances, you have to take them, and you also have to see when you don't have chances to take.
I'm interested in utopian communities of the past. Many of them didn't survive and I'm examining closely the reasons they failed.
In real life, you just work for the ordinary self, but in the front of audience you become the superself. That's a completely different thing.
Television is completely another medium. For me, Lady Gaga and HBO are bringing us to mass culture.
I always sent my mother all these huge books I made. When my mother died, I was cleaning her cupboard, and these big books were only 20 pages long. She edited out, maybe burned, every single photograph where I'm naked.
You know, everyone is always talking about plastic surgery, or the technology, what to do. I really think it's important to help yourself with the technology if you want to feel better, but I am absolutely against any kind of monstrous cuts of the body, lifting that is beyond recognition, this kind of stuff.
There are so many rules in the art world. I don't like rules and I break them all the time. I don't care if people think I'm overexposed. What I care about is if I'm going to run out of energy. Overexposure is only a problem if you are drained of energy and cannot come up with new ideas. Every artist has to recognize that and know when to stop for a moment.
In my work I have complete control, but about my life, I don't want to.
Because of technology, we don't develop telepathy. We don't use telepathy, but use, you know, the mobile phones. Why?
You know, James Franco is one of the most interesting figures because he has no rules. He breaks all the borders.
In every ancient culture, there are rituals to mortify the body as a way of understanding that the energy of the soul is indestructible.
There's nothing more tragic than artists from the 70s still doing art from the 70s.
I am very clear that I am not a feminist. It puts you into a category and I don't like that.
I serve like a bridge. I go to other cultures, learn, put myself in different situations and learn as much as I can, and then go to Western cultures to give. I'm doing this bridging all the time.
You go to India and you see the poorest village somewhere in the middle of India. And the poor family is happier than any rich billionaire in this country because of spirituality.
